Take the leap.

How to Make Emotional Decisions

We are in India. This is the country we will be based in, for a few months at least. We are terribly excited, and afraid, at the moment, about being here. Will it work out? Will we be able to adjust? Are we going to be SAFE?

But that’s part of our practice at Orangutan Swing. We know that, furthermore, that practice is LIFE. We rarely know what will really happen in life, do we? And somehow, yet, we are tasked to roll with what comes our way. Or not, as the case might be sometimes.

Making decisions is hard when you realize this reality. When you realize just how little control you do have, what do you choose to control? How do you know what the right move is?

We tend to think of rational decision-making as somehow superior in our culture. Weigh the cost versus benefit, sketch out scenarios, make a “decision tree.” But, as it turns out, in our case at least, emotions and feelings can guide us toward richer, open, and ultimately more fruitful places, if not strictly “right” ones in terms of logic and reason.

Danielle LaPorte, a wildly popular author/speaker/personal development guru (she’s aiming at going head to head with Oprah as she prepares her own media empire), has something to say about that, too.

She says: Go with what makes you feel expansive.

More about this idea, and how we applied it in our recent decision to visit Thailand, in our upcoming email dispatch. Sign up to receive it directly in your email inbox here: